Federal health care policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Federal health care policy - Essay Example tient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is an example of federal health policy that was passed and enacted in March 2010 (Cronin & Aponte, 2012). Over the past decades, federal health care policies have been criticized based on their implementation, effectiveness and consistencies with the constitutional framework of federalism. This paper, therefore, primarily aims at describing how the Obamacare raises the question of federalism, including the pros and cons in debates about the policy. It also provides the effectiveness of this policy and its consistency with the constitutional framework of federalism. President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, in March 2010 (Cronin & Aponte, 2012). He outlined that Obamacare program will introduce tax credits that will help small businesses offer insurance to their employees, restrict insurance firms to drop or limit a patient’s coverage due to illness, enable individuals with pre-existing conditions to quality for insurance, and allow people of up to 26 year remain on their parent or guardian’s policies (Cronin & Aponte, 2012). A number of reforms, under this bill, have been implemented while others are scheduled for implementation, in the next few years. Both the Democrats and Republicans have since criticized the bill, even after it was passed by congress. They argue that this bill will only reduce the access and quality to healthcare, and reduce a person’s ability to purchase health insurance (Cronin & Aponte, 2012). The debate about Obamacare concerns its effectiveness in enabling all Americans access and pay for their health insurance plans. People supporting Obamacare argues that this legislation builds on the existing health care system, and uses the available medical providers, doctors and plans. It also provides affordable and accessible healthcare for Americans (Jacobs & Skocpol, 2012). Patients will be able to negotiate about health care decisions with their